“WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, JIMMY STEWART?”

RECOMMENDED

WHEN:Through Dec. 8

WHERE: American Theater Company, 1909 W. Byron

TICKETS: $25-30

CALL: (773) 929-1031

“Off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high into the sky.”

This musical riff, which leads us into “Where Have You Gone, Jimmy Stewart?,” Art Shay’s winningly direct and often politically incorrect memoir, is full of breezy (and perhaps blinding) hope.

nd that certainly was the spirit with which the enterprising young Bronx, N.Y.-born Jewish boy entered World War II, where he served as an aviation navigator in the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe under the command of the Hollywood star whose name graces the title.

Of course, seeing your pals shot down in flight as they try to rack up the 30 bombing missions that will get them off the hook can alter your attitude toward war. So can witnessing many other forms of mass destruction. And sure, it changed Shay, who went on to a career as an internationally admired photojournalist with strong Chicago roots. But it certainly didn’t make him an apologist.

Just watch the way John Sterchi, the vigorous, likable, no- nonsense actor who plays Shay in this one-man show, stomps his foot on the map of Germany painted on the stage floor at the American Theater Company. Each stomp sets off an explosion that conjures the Allies’ bombing raids on Cologne, Essen, Munich and other cities. There is no joy in it, but there is resolute determination, just as there is righteous disgust when Shay speaks of writer Kurt Vonnegut’s misguided piety about the destruction of Dresden, and when he notes that he has no interest in attending bridge-building reunions of American and German veterans.

The sense of disgust, and the senselessness of it all, is there when he tallies up the numbers of sons (and fathers and uncles and husbands) who died in World War II and later in Vietnam. And of course it is palpable when he remembers an ever-nagging tragedy at home–the death of his own beloved son Harmon. A naive hippie and college dropout who was a computer wizard before any accessible computer was on the market, Harmon vanished into the wild blue yonder- -no doubt murdered somewhere in Florida–before his 21st birthday.

Written in an alternately punchy and rambling style–as if shaped from answers to the questions of an interviewer who was organized but open to detours–the show is rich in anecdotes and personal asides. And Sterchi, guided by veteran actor (and veteran) Mike Nussbaum, finds just the right mix of nostalgia and toughness, with excellent design work from Martin Andrew (set), Geoffrey Bushor (lighting) and Jason Tratta (sound).